McLin running for third term despite city’s challenges

Rhine McLin - Fact File

DAYTON — If Mayor Rhine McLin is re-elected to a third term on November 3rd and she completes it, she will be the city’s longest serving mayor.

Though she’s never lost an election, she’s not taking anything for granted.

She expects a tough race this fall, not only battling challenger Gary Leitzell, but also a recession that has driven Dayton’s jobless rate to 13.7 percent.

Budget cuts have become part of the culture at City Hall in an ongoing effort to balance the books. Some blame McLin for the city’s shrinking revenue base and loss of businesses such NCR.

Leitzell, an independent endorsed by the Montgomery County Republican Party, thinks something else is missing in Dayton —leadership.

“Dealing with City Hall is just frustrating,” Leitzell said.

Premier Health Partners president and CEO Tom Breitenbach said his organization has likely invested more in Dayton in recent years than any other, including a $100 million expansion of Miami Valley Hospital. He points to development on Brown Street and around the hospital, including expansion of the University of Dayton, as evidence of city progress under McLin.

“She’s committed to city businesses and its institutions,” Breitenbach said. “The buck stops at the top. If things don’t go well, they look at the mayor and the city manager. If things are going good, they should get the credit.”

“I came home...”

McLin’s entry into politics came through her dad, the late state Rep. C.J. McLin, Jr., a Democrat who served 22 years in the House. McLin was appointed to her father’s seat in Ohio’s 36th House district after his death in 1988. Two years later she won the seat on her own.

Republicans in 1994 poured more than $200,000 into Pam Miller Howard’s campaign for a Ohio senate seat. It wasn’t enough to edge out McLin, a win that made her the first black woman in the upper House. She was prevented from running for a third consecutive Ohio Senate term in 2002 due to term limits.

McLin shifted her focus home to Dayton and in 2001 made her first bid for mayor.

“My passion for the city is so deep,” McLin said. “Being mayor of Dayton is not a stepping stone. I’ve been in the state legislature. I’ve been a senator and a business woman. I came home to my own community, the one that helped me to develop.”

Leitzell, chairman of the Southeast Priority Board, takes on a Democratic machine that has dominated Dayton politics. There has not been a Republican on the City Commission since McLin’s 2001 defeat of then-mayor Mike Turner, now a congressman serving Ohio’s 3rd District.

Dayton Realtor and businessman Mike Martin believes McLin’s political connections make her an asset to the city. She is a member of the Democratic National Committee and was as a “superdelegate” to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

As a member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, McLin was among 60 city leaders to meet with President Barack Obama in February to talk about stimulus funding. Her association with Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland dates back to his work as a prison psychologist in the mid 1990s.

“She can pick up the telephone and call someone in the Statehouse when the city has needs,” said Martin, president of the Historic Oregon District Business Association, and a Republican. “To be able to communicate with the mayor and have her call you back within hours is great. I have never had a problem getting things done in this city.”

Perhaps more important, Martin believes McLin is bridging a racial barrier that has long divided East and West Dayton.

“She doesn’t think white or black. She thinks Dayton,” Martin said.

Leitzell, too, has tried crossing that bridge.

Delphos Avenue resident Charles Merritt comes from a family that has supported McLins for two generations, but he agreed to display a Leitzell sign in his yard. It’s the only one in the predominately black neighborhood.

“He came out and talked to me himself and he seemed concerned about what’s going on in the city,” Merritt said.

The two spoke about Merritt’s desire to start a small business. The candidate, an entrepreneur himself, shared some advice.

“He helped me out. He didn’t have to do that,” he said.

While Merritt plans to look at Leitzell’s platform, his brother Victor Merritt stands solidly behind the mayor.

“I just like her,” he said. “There’s been a lot going on in Dayton since she’s been mayor, like rebuilding all the bridges.

McLin’s campaigning may have to take a backseat this fall as the City Commission sets priorities for the 2010 budget, with a projected deficit of up to $20 million. Layoffs and service reductions won’t make popular campaign rhetoric for McLin, but they are the reality Dayton faces.

“From the day I came into this office there have been budget challenges,” McLin said. “Folks in Dayton know who their mayor is. There is no job I will not do. There is no job I would ask someone else to do that I wouldn’t do myself. I think I’m tough enough to see this through.”

That toughness, she said, came from growing up in Dayton.

“I’ve always been community property.”

McLin grew up a child of the community raised at the family business, the Farm Dell nightclub in Hog Bottom, where Dunbar High School now stands.

“I’ve always been community property,” she said.

McLin was 5 years old when her mother, Bernice, moved to Trenton, N.J., leaving McLin and her brother to largely be reared by C.J.’s parents. Her grandfather made sure she took piano, violin and dancing lessons.

During summer vacations, McLin visited her mom, who worked at a state hospital for children with severe mental disabilities.

“Mom would bring patients home overnight. They’d wake me up and ask a question, like ‘can I close the refrigerator door.’ From them, I learned patience,” McLin said.

At Iowa’s Parsons College in 1966, McLin became the school’s first black cheerleader and president of the sociology club. When a sorority turned her down, saying its members didn’t want to share a bathroom with her, she filed a lawsuit. On Oct. 3, Parsons will induct McLin into the college’s Hall of Fame.

After earning a master’s degree and landing a teaching job at Belmont High School, McLin spent the next decade getting to know her father, who she described as domineering and chauvinistic.

“Dad taught me that you can’t stand on what you’ve done. There is always something more you can do,” McLin said.

While McLin talks a tough game, Dayton resident Rich Kidd said she also has a compassionate side.

She can’t pass by a person in need.

Kidd was driving McLin home around 1 a.m. after an event at the Dayton Convention Center, when she spotted a distraught young woman walking alone on West Third Street near downtown. The mayor insisted they stop and offer help.

“The woman just had a fight with her boyfriend and he put her out of the car. She was walking home to New Lebanon,” Kidd said. “The mayor offered her a ride.